Thursday, May 18, 2017

About 11 years ago when I was
assigned to be the Vocations Director for the Archdiocese, I started going
around from church to church every Sunday to preach about priestly vocations
and the importance of praying for vocations.At the same time I also served as the Master of Ceremonies for one of
our auxiliary bishops, so there were weekends when I would not preach. While I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Bishop
Noonan and visiting different churches in the tri-county area, I really missed
preaching on Sundays to my parishioners on the readings of the day.So in an effort to stay sharp, every weekend
I would write a brief homily as if I was going to preach it to one of the two
parishes that I had served at.Sometime in
2006, I started emailing these homilies to a few friends. Late that year, I
started posting my homilies on (ready for this?) Myspace of all places.Soon the email list got longer, I moved from
Myspace to Facebook like everyone else, and by the time I returned to parish
life in January 2009, I was writing, or better yet transcribing my homilies
every single week.

More often than not, here is how
the process would go.I rarely write my
entire homily before I preach.I usually
start thinking and praying about what I want to preach about in the middle of
the week.By Friday or Saturday, I have
4 or 5 things that I want to mention in my homily that I jot down on a post it
note and I put it in my pocket.By
Sunday morning I (usually) know what I want to communicate during those
precious 7-10 minutes during Mass that I get to share the Word of God with my
parishioners. I seldom take the post it note out of my pocket unless there’s a
quote on it that I don’t want to butcher, and then when I start preaching, it’s
all up to the Holy Spirit from there.

Every Sunday night around 9pm, I
would sit down in my room with my laptop with only that post it note as my
reference and I would transcribe what I preached that day.Only on very few occasions would I write down
the entire homily before I actually preached it.I really enjoy writing.I really enjoy communicating the Good News of
Jesus Christ through the different social mediums at our disposal.For me it’s like a journal of my priestly journey
of faith and how I communicate that faith to the people of God.

So I did this every Sunday night,
except when I was on vacation or out of town, for 10 years. I don’t know how many homilies I have
written.I have on occasion peeked back
and looked at what I wrote in 2006 or 2007 and cringed at what I had
transcribed.Sometimes I would wonder if
this weekly Sunday night routine was an exercise in vanity, but the comments I
have received over the years have been so uplifting and not surprisingly, some
of those positive comments are in response to homilies that I don’t think are
that good.Just another proof that the
Holy Spirit is in charge when I stand in my church to preach or sit in front of
a keyboard to type.

Last June, I started to feel rust
and started to get weary from my Sunday evening routine.It was a lot easier to do when I wasn’t a
pastor.On June 5th of last
year, I wrote a very personal and heartfelt homily to my students who were
about to graduate from 8th grade and by extension to all the
students I have ever taught.I still
remember preaching that homily about coming home and staying home with my heart
in my hand.When I put it in writing
later that evening and shared it with a few friends, I realized that it was one
of those rare homilies that I was (almost) completely satisfied with.So I posted it, and thought to myself, “if
that’s the last homily I ever post, that’s fine with me.”You see, one of the primary reasons I posted
my homilies in the first place was to reach out to those who have wandered far
from the Church.Whenever I would sit
down and write, I would always have my kids in the back of my mind praying that
they would read what were essentially love letters from God to them.

That mini-sabbatical lasted barely
two months.The people on my email list
asked me to keep on writing which I did.But the New Year rolled around, and I started noticing that at least the
written version of my homilies didn’t have the same spirit they once had.I was doing this more out of duty than out of
passion.So after returning from the
March for Life in January, I wrote one final homily for the closing Mass of a
retreat we hosted for families with children with special needs…and then I stopped.I needed a break.I did not want this labor of love to be a
routine.Some friends pleaded with me to
keep writing, but this time I stood firm because I needed the break.Over the past few months, the homilies I have
preached in my parish have been more heart to hearts with my parishioners as we
endeavor to grow closer to Christ.They
have been probably the most personal homilies I have ever given.They are homilies that “you just gotta be
there.”

This doesn’t mean that I won’t
return to this medium again.In fact,
one of the reasons I decided to write these lines was because on Tuesday I got
an email from our editor in the Archdiocese that she was going to publish that
homily I mentioned earlier from June of last year.The power of the written word is not lost on
me especially when that power is amplified because I am writing about the Living
Word of God.I wish I could have you all
in my pews every single Sunday, but I implore you to listen to the words of
your priests in your parishes.Yes I
know that some are more eloquent than others, but listen because the Lord is communicating
to you through these chosen ones of His.There is more power in a homily heard and experienced during the
celebration of the Eucharist than in any words that I can possibly write to you
on Sunday nights.

So for now, “I’m on a break” from
writing…not from preaching the gospel.Pray
for me.Pray for each other.And above all, pray for your priests!